Tend to the Poet
by Tamsin Anna Beauchamp
Summary: It was as if Clarissa Rosella Lestrange had been living in the stormy, uncertain shades of grey all of her short life. But then came along a blood traitor, all shiny and golden and loved. And, for the first time, it was as if Clarissa was truly alive.


**Tend to the Poet**

**Chapitre Un** - _Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. Because if you gaze long enough into the abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you. _

Clarissa Rosella Lestrange stood dismally in the magical ruins of her family home. 'Sans cesse chanceux, jamais affectif, toujours pur.' Forever wealthy, never emotional, always pure. Summed the members of her family up perfectly. The crushing enormity of the situation threatened to overwhelm her as Cassie saw her father's portrait lying in the rubble, despite her family's forceful teachings from a young age. "No emotions, girl! How many times do I have to beat it into you?" Cassie swayed sickeningly at the memory and cleared her throat, before moving on for more memories to desperately clutch to.

The status of her family, the wealth, the power they possessed, all in disarray. Before they fled to evade Voldemort and her father's public renouncement of him, the family had disowned her for associating with 'filthy half-bloods'; 'despicable blood traitors' and, her mothers favourite, 'the thieves-of-magic; Mudbloods.' Despite this, Cassie brushed the dust away from her mother's portrait which hung dejectedly on a single, lone-standing wall. She performed a simple spell which righted the portrait and kissed it, before Apparating illegally away. It didn't matter, their house, or what was left of it, habited in a magical community anyway.

Cassie woke up, and sighed. She rose quickly, and hastily quashed her dangerous emotions, and the dream that so often recurred. There wasn't room for laziness at her latest, dismal excuse for a house. She made her bed, the Muggle way, as her mother's trusted wand had been misplaced or stolen long ago. The housemother at the time wouldn't tell her, she seemed, at the time... Frightened, almost. Soon after, she ran away from the home (ran was an overstatement, she had heartily swaggered, with all of the contempt she could muster, out of there) and from there had ventured into Knockturn Alley.

She had strutted around Knockturn Alley with as much as the contempt she had inherited from Bellatrix as she could produce. She made to look like she had business, and looking a great deal like her mother, Bella, helped too. She had then quickly stole the first wand that was easily accessible (fools, these were dark times, didn't they know better than to abandon their gateway to the magical world?!) and had illegally disapparated before the fools had even noticed she was present.

Clarissa felt, however, much too exhausted to fetch her wand from its secure hiding place and the stringent security measures she had placed around it, therefore felt it not beneath her to act like a Muggle for two minutes, and clumsily made her bed.

Soon after the wand-pilfering, she had found a Muggle family, and just about successfullly obliviated their memories with all the power she could muster, that which she had learned oh so attentively from her mother. She had then reworked the family documents to include a daughter named Clarissa Rosella Montmarcey. Yes, she had to pass off as a dirty Mudblood who knew nothing of magic when she finally made it to Hogwarts, but it made her look all the more talented, knowing the darkest of spells before any of the higher years. It wasn't ideal, but Cassie was nearing her eleventh birthday rapidly and would soon receive the letter of admission.

The muggleness of the name made her retch when reminiscing, and Cassie quite forgot herself. It was only until 'Mother' screeched for her to join the breakfast table. Cassie jumped, the shrillity ringing in her ears. She was supposed to have tidied her measly room before this, and she couldn't EVER be late for breakfast. She waved a cheeky flick of the untrustworthy, newly-located wand, and exited the bedroom, hurtling down the stairs two at a time. "Good morning, Mother. Father." Cassie nodded solemnly at each of them. She was never to show happiness. Mother hated it. "Yes, Clarissa, you're here. Now, breakfast is on the table, and you know the cycle by now. Standard routine cleaning of the household plus a little extra work on the stove oven. You're slacking, girl. How are you ever going to make a good housewife?" Her mother looked at her disapprovingly.

"Now, Jules. She's intelligent, this one. Don't you think she could be something more than a simple housewife? A lawyer, maybe?" Her father was a little more lenient, having her best interests at heart. Her mother it seemed, on the other hand, was almost living through her. "Don't be foolish Thomas. Tis not the place of a woman to do a man's job. Clarissa. You have a resourceful day, now. Your father and I will be home at six. Goodbye." Her mother tutted once more at her husband and the most unladylike manner of her only child, and sauntered through the doorway.

"Bye, chick. Have a good day. Maybe play with the children over the way?" And with that, her father left the house, his great frame causing him to slope through the doorways.

Cassie sighed and used the wand to clean, taking extra care with the stove. She was used to cleaning, all of the two years she'd been here, her mother just had to have a bid to make her the perfect housewife. But it was always odd to adjust from owning a house-elf to becoming one. With no more than a lazy flick of the wand, Cassie was finished for the day, and decided she'd take her father up on his suggestion and play with the children who, supposedly, lived over the hill.

Cassie was just adding the finishing touches to her loosely styled hair, favourite outfit, and the light smattering of makeup she wore (one never had a second chance to make a first impression!) when the doorbell echoed a sinister melody. It was funny, really, how Cassie had grown so used to this frivolous house, that she had never once realised how naked, exposed and vulnerable the lonely, old building made her feel. The whole of the wizarding world was just waiting for her to seize with both hands. There were also individuals, members of the ever-honourable purebred, pureblood line that could SO easily locate her. They didn't. Her father was Arcturus Lestrange and her mother; Bellatrix Black for crying out loud! She was the eldest and only Lestrange child, heir to (what was left of) the Lestrange fortune! If that wasn't enough reason for those mere baboons brandishing sticks to at least _capture_ her, Cass didn't know what was. The doorbell chimed a mockingly, beautifully morbid tune. Cassie checked the Muggle contraption for checking time. It was barely noon, Cassie was certain it wasn't her... _Parents_.  
The word rolled off of her tongue like rain dancing intricately and beating a steady tattoo on the decaying corpses of recently deceased. Cassie sighed, held out her wand, like her mother had instilled into her countless times, when she escorted Cassie to endless Death Eater gatherings. From the tender age of 18 months, the horrors Cassie faced were to stay in that disgusting, secretive, perverted room, and that disgusting, secretive, perverted room only. She shivered as the memory swept over her, entwining and gleefully, perversely embracing every one of her senses with it. Cassie recoiled away from everything, and rocked in the fetal position as the memory engulfed her quaint state of being.

"Ah, Bellatrix. I see your... spawn has accompanied us. How great it must feel, the first gathering it attends and I am present. Tell, what of the sex?"  
Voldemort had his eyes on the child seated in Bella's lap and was watching it intently. "Female, my liege." Bellatrix gushed with a curt nod, and the faint sense of pride Bellatrix felt was echoed in her eyes. Voldemort let out a strangled hiss. "Another woman," The Dark Lord stood up suddenly, his robes billowing around him impressively. "And what use is she to our cause? Women are nothing but child-bearers and homemakers!" There was a pregnant pause as The Dark Lord mused. Nobody dared utter a single sound as Voldemort seemed immersed in his own thoughts. "However," he announced, breaking the strained lull."I can think of one, ah... Use.. We can put her to."

Voldemort's eyes locked on Bellatrix and gleamed malevolently. His expression was one of challenge, as if he dared Bellatrix's foolish maternal instinct to take over her mind and refuse, questioning his very being. However, of course, the only veto Bellatrix let show was the flashing of her eyes and the instinctive tightening of her grip on the child.

"What is this? Surely you want the child to be initiated, as one of us? Or, Bellatrix, (his snake-like features hardened and a perverse, childlike smile formed on his lips) do your loyalties lie elsewhere?" Voldemort wore a gleeful, unyielding expression, indicating for Bellatrix to argue, to challenge, to do _something_ that indicated resistance. "My... Lord! Of course, my loyalties lie with you, and you only! But, if essential to the cause, you may perform any act you see fit on the... Child." Bellatrix shied away from naming the pitiful creature for fear of getting too attached, and, if Voldemort was planning a repeat of Bellatrix's initiation, Bellatrix couldn't feel any affection for the child. "Excellent. Excellent! Now, we shall begin..." Voldemort's face swam in and out of focus alternately as the memory sank deep into its usual hiding place, at the very bottom of her being.

The constant tattoo of drumming on the wooden door in front of Clarissa's refuge spot woke her from the reminisce. She was drenched in sweat. Steadily, Clarissa stood up, took a quick evaluation of herself in the ornate mirror, and, with a deep breath and an unsteady heart, opened the door.


End file.
